The priority application Number Japanese Patent Application 2003-393819 upon which this patent application is based is hereby incorporated by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a display unit having a display such as an LCD at the center of a dial of a revolution indicator such as a tachometer or a speedometer.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a display unit described above, for example, it is known that a display is arranged in front of a dial of a normal revolution indicator. This arrangement prevents a pointer from obstructing a view of the display, so that the display may be arranged in the center of the dial.
However, in cases where the dial indicates important information such as vehicle speed and the display displays relatively unimportant information such as the present time, there is a demand to improve visibility of the dial by arranging the dial in front of the display.
For meeting this demand, a conventional display unit as shown in FIGS. 5A and 5B is disclosed in German Patent Publication Document DE4321146A1. FIG. 5A is a front view of the conventional display unit. FIG. 5B is a cross-sectional view taken on line III–III′ of the conventional display unit in FIG. 5A. As shown in FIGS. 5A and 5B, this display unit includes a display 11 and a dial 12 arranged in front of the display 11. In this dial 12, a substantially arc-shaped slot 12b is provided along graduations 12a. 
Further, a drive 14 is provided at a backside of the display 11. This drive 14 rotates a pointer 15. This pointer 15 includes a first pointer part 15a positioned at a backside of the dial 12, and a second pointer part 15b positioned in front of the dial 12. The first and second pointer parts 15a, 15b communicate with each other via the slot 12b provided in the dial 12.
According to the above, when the first pointer part 15a is rotated at the backside of the display 11, the second pointer part 15b is rotated along the slot 12b in front of the dial 12. Therefore, the pointer 15 can indicate the graduations 12a on the dial 12 without obstructing a view of the display 11.
However, in the conventional display unit described above, there is a problem in that the slot 12b should be provided on the dial 12, and reduces an appearance and design quality of the display unit.
Therefore, for solving the problems described above, an object of the present invention is to provide a display unit with high design quality by eliminating the slot provided in the dial, and positioning the dial in front of the display.